Business

New York City can't agree to disagree on the future of Airbnb

New York City is grappling with how to address wildly popular short-term rentals, and the complexity of the issue was on full display Tuesday at City Hall.

The City Council's Housing and Buildings Committee heard testimony Tuesday from residents, housing advocates, city officials and companies about the effects of the growing industry on the city. The day's tone was set early when the two sides — both for and against short-term rental services — staged dueling rallies outside the building ahead of the hearing.

At the hearing, advocates for affordable housing were among the most vocal in their opposition to short-term rentals.

"Preserving and expanding affordable, available housing is New York City's greatest need, and illegal hotels exacerbate the crisis," New York state senator Liz Krueger, who sponsored the state's 2010 Illegal Hotel Law, said in a statement about Tuesday's hearing. "The work of the city agencies enforcing the illegal hotel law is vital — they are working to preserve residential housing and put those who are converting housing into illegal hotels out of business."

Several City Council members expressed concern about enforcement of the laws against short-term rentals — in New York City, rentals of an entire home or apartment for less than 29 days are prohibited when the owner is not present.

Elizabeth Glazer, a director with the Mayor's office, faced repeated questions from the council on how violations of housing regulations are addressed. The office's complaint-driven enforcement — in which investigators only respond when a citizen complains about an active short-term rental — was cited as a problem by the council.

"If we know there are 14,000 illegal rentals out there ... and you're a complaints-driven office that responded to 1,100 complaints last year," said council member Rosenthal. "All I'm asking [is that you] enhance your team and capacity to go after the 14,000 units."

The number of allegedly "illegal rentals" — 14,000 — is based on previous analyses, and is disputed by Airbnb.

On Tuesday, Share Better, a coalition formed to address the rapid growth of short-term rentals, released new data on Airbnb's listings in New York City.

The data was collected by Tom Slee, a software professional who has covered Airbnb over the past year and regularly scrapes the company's website to analyze listings. Slee is not associated with the coalition or government officials in the committee.

In November 2014, about 15,300 New York City listings were entire homes or apartments representing about 59% of the available listings on the site that month, according to Slee. There were also 9,704 listings for private rooms, and 753 listings for shared rooms.

The analysis also showed that 2,764 users were renting out two or more units, which opponents have cited as evidence the service is helping illegal hotels. More than 200 users were renting out five units or more.

"This analysis is flawed," Airbnb spokesman Nick Papas told Mashable. "But we think it's time to move forward and work together on some sensible solutions."

When asked about Airbnb's criticism, Slee said he could not respond to the vague charge.

"If Airbnb has a proper criticism then I'd love to hear it," Slee told Mashable. "Even more, if they put out some decent numbers of their own rather than the silly 'city impact studies' that they do, we could have a conversation. But 'flawed' is as empty a criticism as you can get."

In response to the public hearing, Airbnb has been vocal about the benefit of short-term rentals. Although the company is not the only service that allows for short-term rental booking, Airbnb — with a valuation of $13 billion — has been at the center of the controversy in several cities and especially New York.

"The majority of hosts use the money they earn to pay their bills and stay in their homes," Airbnb public policy head David Hantman wrote to lawmakers in a letter Friday.

Airbnb is calling for "smart regulation," which it has had success with in cities including Portland, Oregon; San Jose and San Francisco, California; Amsterdam; and Paris. Airbnb collects lodging tax directly from hosts in those cities, and several local governments have passed laws that allow short-term rentals in some form.

"We want everyone to know that we’re listening, and that we’re eager to work with all stakeholders in New York, including policymakers, housing advocates, and regular New Yorkers, to ensure that home sharing continues to benefit New York, and that it is done safely and responsibly," Airbnb stated on its public policy blog on Tuesday.

At Tuesday's day-long hearing, Airbnb's Head of Global Public Policy David Hantman faced off against council members asking for information about illegal activity in the city. Hantman said the discussion of legality is not the issue, and that the company wants to focus on the quality of the experience.

"Are we really talking about someone who does this once a year for a week, or are we talking about people who do this all the time?" asked Hantman. "We're talking past each other. We do not support illegal hotels ... We need to change the law to make it make sense."

"We're talking about apartments that are being taken off the market and being used illegally," Council Member Jumaane Williams said.

When asked if the listings on Airbnb are violating the law, Hantman said the company does not monitor individual behavior: "We don't look that closely at what people are doing."

"You started out telling me why people are renting, you explained the situations they are in ... you explained a lot of things," Williams said to Hantman, then saying it seemed strange to him that with all the research, the company has not ensured that the site activity is legal. "I cannot understand how you can sit there and never mention violations of city, state and federal law."

"You really should pay more attention to the laws in the cities that you're setting up your business in," he said.

Hantman said that platforms like Airbnb are not in a position to regulate user activity, and that determining legality must in large part be left to hosts. Airbnb had previously removed about 2,000 listings, however Hantman did not discuss data on current listings.

Council Member Helen Rosenthal recognized that many listings on the site are in a "gray area," making it difficult to determine who on the site is acting as Airbnb says, renting out their own home for a week or two a year, and who is abusing short-term rentals.

"The disadvantage we're in is we don't know how big the gray area is, and you do," she said.

Both sides agreed on seemingly only one thing: That a discussion and regulation of short-term rentals in New York City is overdue.

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